Posted by:
casichelydia
at Sat Aug 27 23:29:49 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by casichelydia ]
white on bone! Once you strip off the keratin and the very narrow tissue layer underneath, that's what you get out of a turtle shell, the bone.
The last of the three pictures you posted seems a good one - I believe you can make out the sutures between the costal bones. Depending on the source for your animals, the injuries are likely the results of pre- or post-shipping treatment. Especially if these animals were initially intended for cuisine markets (prominent trade in part of New York and San Francisco), they may have gone through some real mass-packaging rigors.
Luckily, she looks outwardly healthy for a recent acquisition. Since the tissue in the injured areas is completely stripped off, it does not seem likely that the scutes will completely regenerate, ever. Insofar as threat of dehydration from life in brackish water with that much of the carapace unprotected by the upper layers of the shell, I couldn't tell you. It would seem that the mineral content of the water (salts and such) would potentially have, at least initially, a negative (i.e., drawing water from underneath the shell) effect. However, being chronically exposed to the atmosphere will do the same thing, to the shell as well as to the skin.
For now, you might simply allow her to behave normally and keep a sharp eye on the progress of the injury margins. If these are large females, healing will be even slower than normal, which is after all, at a turtle's pace.
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Wow, that's like white on rice or - casichelydia, Sat Aug 27 23:29:49 2005